WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION

ANNALS OF CRIME about expert witness Dr. Park Elliott Dietz, a forensic psychologist. Dietz is the virtuoso expert witness who keeps showing up on Court TV. Known to be masterly in establishing criminal responsibility in homicide cases where insanity is the counter-argument, Dietz has helped the prosecution win in trials involving Jeffrey Dahmer, Arthur Shawcross, and Betty Broderick. When he was asked by the district attorney to testify in the Joel Rifkin trial, in Mineola, Long Island, he agreed to do so under 2 conditions: that he be paid $3,000/day, to cover travel expenses, and $250 an hour, and that he be given full access to all the evidence beforehand. "My duty is to find the truth as best I can," he told the Rifkin jury last Tuesday, when he appeared before them as the final witness in the case. Tells about his education. Discusses the legal definition of insanity, which involves the question of whether an individual had the capacity to conform his or her conduct to the requirements of law. His appearances as a forensic psychiatrist have more typically met with success. Writer visits him at his home in Newport Beach, California. Tells about visiting a shooting range with Dietz, where he fires a handgun at mannequins, and wins a prize.